A Problem to be Solved
by TantalumCobolt
Summary: The coin spins round and round and round. Never faltering, never falling. Always balanced. Real and Not Real. Which way will it fall?


**AN:** **I have spent the last few weeks of my life attempting to come up with a suitable way to fill the 'gaslighting' square on my hc_bingo card with little success. Then I was reading some really good Captain America fic yesterday and realised Bucky was the perfect victim for this prompt. I did my best to read up on gaslighting because prior to getting it on my bingo card I'd never heard of it, but it was a little confusing so I've probably gotten it completely wrong. Oh well it's not a challenge if it's something you're familiar with is it?**

 **For those of you who are in the same boat as I was a few weeks ago, here's the quick Google definition of gaslighting: manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their own sanity.**

 **Title comes from a quote by Soren Kierkegaard (one of my fav philosophers ever 3): Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.**

 **Happy reading!**

* * *

What is real?

When the Winter Soldier starts to remember that he was not always the Winter Soldier, he asks himself that question every night. Memories leak into his mind like water through a sieve, a constant stream of _Steve_ and _Sarah_ and _Peggy_ and _gunfire_ and _snow_ and _falling._ Everything is jumbled, like a video reel sliced apart and glued back together without thought for order or sense, but always there is falling. Falling through fire, falling through ice, falling in love. Sometimes he is caught, sometimes he hits the ground, sometimes there is no end.

What is not real?

That is the better question, the one he starts asking himself while hiding in a chalet in Northern France. There is a redhead, he is sure of it, but she appears in Bucky's memories as well as the Soldier's and no matter how much thought he gives it, he cannot figure out which one she truly belongs to. There is a man too, tall and dark with greying hair, a doctor of some kind, who smiles kindly then slices open his chest.

He doesn't think that is real.

Can't be sure.

Not anymore.

Not without someone to help.

The news tells him Alexander Pearse is dead and Bucky thinks _good_. The Winter Soldier thinks _what do I do now?_

* * *

"Repeat after me: I am a soldier."

"I am a soldier."

"I am a good soldier."

"I am a good soldier."

"And good soldiers follow orders."

"And good soldiers follow order."

"So what are you going to do next time you feel even an ounce of doubt about your assignment?"

"Follow orders, sir."

The slap is sharp and unexpected. "Did I say you could stop repeating after me?"

* * *

Steve calls him Bucky. Never Soldier, never James, never Barnes, never the Asset. Just Bucky.

Steve says it wasn't him. He didn't do those things. His mind was corrupted. They made him do all those terrible, horrible things and he didn't want to but he had no choice.

He doesn't tell Steve that he did want to do it. All of it. Because if the Soldier didn't follow orders then the Soldier wasn't a good soldier and bad soldiers get punished. He didn't want to be punished so he did what he was told and he learnt to like it because anything was better than the Consequences of not complying.

He nods and agrees and says, "I don't do that anymore."

Silently adds, _I don't do anything. I don't know how._

* * *

Sam doesn't trust him (smart man), but more than that, Sam doesn't like him. The weight of his judgement, his displeasure with the entire situation, settles over them like a blanket. Not a wet blanket, though, not unpleasant the way it should be. Sam's distrust, Sam's dislike, seep into his chest and into his mind and leave him feeling... relieved? Reassured? Grateful? Because it means that Sam knows he's dangerous, that he's not just Bucky Barnes, he's the Soldier. And Sam isn't going to let the Soldier get in the way of Steve getting Bucky back.

Pearse was the same, always watching him, making sure Bucky didn't get in the way of him being the Soldier. He made sure he knew his orders, knew what would happen if they weren't completed, knew why he had to be the one to complete them. _You're the best, Soldier_ , he'd say. _And when you're the best you need to keep reminding people you're the best because if you don't they'll forget. You don't want to be forgotten, do you?_

Sam doesn't let him forget. Pearse taught him how to be remembered.

Good and evil.

Right and wrong.

Truth and lies.

The coin spins round and round and round. Which way will it fall? Sam or Pearse? Good or evil? Right or wrong? Truth or lies? Bucky or the Soldier?

He squeezes his eyes shut and waits for someone to knock the coin over. Until then, it spins and spins and spins. Never faltering, never falling. Always balanced.

Real and Not Real.

* * *

"Steve suggested I talk to you."

He stays silent, staring out the window at the clouds threatening rain. Talking is all Steve wants to do - talking and starting a war.

"He thought I might be able to help, having had experience with brainwashing and all that. I told him it wasn't the same, that you couldn't possibly know what it felt like having a god pulling you out of your mind and stuffing something else in."

He couldn't possibly-? He's moving before he fully registers doing it, acting on autopilot as he grabs the archer and pins him against the wall. Clint grimaces as his head slams into the plaster but he's wearing a vaguely self-satisfied smirk.

"You did that on purpose," Bucky realises. "You wanted me to be angry."

"Anger is good," Clint agrees. "As long as it's directed at Hydra and Pearse, not at yourself." His gaze is piecing, cutting through layers of Bucky and the Soldier and seeing the tangled mess inside. "Who gets your anger?"

"I don't know."

 _I don't know who deserve it._

"Well let me know when you figure it out. Then we can move on to step two."

"Step two?"

"Figuring out _why_ you're angry."

* * *

"You could at least remember me."

 _I do,_ Bucky wants to say. _I remember your hair, I remember your eyes, I remember your smile. I remember you, Natalya._

But that comes later. In the moment, Bucky isn't Bucky, he's the Soldier. And the Soldier isn't allowed to remember red hair or green eyes or an impish smile because Natalya was his friend and the Soldier doesn't have friends. _You don't have anyone except me_ , Pearse had told him.

 _But Natalya said-_

 _Natalya is trained to lie, Soldier._ And then Pearse smiles. It's warm and patronising and fatherly and condescending and Bucky wants to scream. _You're not going to believe a liar over me, are you?_

 _No, sir._

He doesn't know who - or what - to believe anymore. Natalya made herself through lies, Pearse made him through lies. But maybe Steve is the biggest liar of them all because he says it wasn't him and he knows his memories are mores scrambled than an anagram but he knows what he was. What he is.

He knows it was real.

(Wasn't it?)

* * *

The night before the airport he has a dream. He's standing in the doorway of a cabin, staring out at a winter scene of snow and scraggly pines. He doesn't know where; he doesn't know if he's supposed to know where. All he knows is that it's peaceful. The snow is a thick blanket that muffles all sound and, as he watches, the wind lifts it into the air and twirl it around, like a dancer with an invisible partner, rising higher and higher into the grey sky. He has a sudden desire to go out there, to trek through the woods and let the cold and the snow numb his mind like it numbs the world. He turns around - to grab his coat? No, his rifle. He needs to get his rifle; he can't leave equipment evidence behind.

The cabin isn't a cabin, not anymore, it's a slaughterhouse. Red stains the white camouflage suits of two soldiers, hands lax on guns they were too slow to use. A third man, dressed in black, an agent of some kind with a tattoo on his wrist, is slumped over at the small table, blood pooling on the cards he was playing with (solitaire, the Soldier absently catalogues, not winning - is there any such thing as winning against yourself? Irrelevant. Focus on the mission, Soldier.). And in the middle of it all, a girl. No older than seven, chocolate curls framing a pale face, eyes screwed shut against the horror around her. Her mouth is open, a small 'o' of surprise, a single perfect hole, just like the one where the bullet went into her forehead.

He wakes up gasping, waiting for someone to say _it's not real_ or _that didn't happen_ or _you were following orders._ But he is alone and the room stays silent.

* * *

He thinks a lot about what Clint said. Thinks a lot about anger. It doesn't take him long to realise he's angry at everyone. He's angry at Pearse because of the things he did. He's angry at himself because he let those things be done to him, with him. He's angry at Pearse because he made him so jumbled. He's angry at himself because he doesn't know how to fix it. Angry at Steve because he doesn't get it. Angry at Sam because he doesn't care. Angry at Clint because thinking about it all just makes his head hurt.

"What's step three?" he asks, scuffing a boot against the floor because it's that or twiddling his fingers and that's harder to do with a metal hand.

"Well." Clint takes a considering sip of coffee. "Usually I'd say go talk to a professional but I think you've had enough people playing around in your head to last an extended lifetime."

Bucky frowns. "I don't want to talk, I want to fix it. I want to know what's real. I want to know who I am. I want to know what I've done."

 _I want it to make sense._

"Maybe I should just start a self-help class," the archer mutters. "Pep talks and life lessons for a dollar." Then he sets down his mug and finally gives Bucky his full attention." Okay, you're only going to hear this once, so listen up. What you did, who you were - none of that matters. What's important is what you do now, who you choose to be now. You can spend the rest of your life wallowing in the shit that Pearse did to you and the orders you carried out for Hydra, your life before the war and as one of the Commandos, but that doesn't help anyone, especially not you. You can be Bucky Barnes or the Winter Soldier, hell, you can be both, you can be neither if that's what you want, but you're not going to figure it out by trying to sort your jumbled memories into Bucky and the Soldier, or real or not real, or whatever it is you're hung up on. Just pick the ones you like, the ones that feel right and decide they're real. Reality is just a matter of perception, so pick a reality you like and go with it. Everything else will just fall into place."

Bucky just stands there, a little gobsmacked at the wisdom from the usually sarcastic man, surprised to find that it's actually good advice. He doesn't have to care what Pearse said, what Steve wants from him. He doesn't have to live up to anyone's expectations but his own. He doesn't have to be anyone but himself.

Now he just needs to figure out who he wants to be.

And where he can get a dollar.

* * *

 **AN:** **I'm still looking for ideas for some of my bingo squares: healers, arrest and the wild card. So any requests/prompts for fic revolving around any of those are more than welcome, for this fandom or any of the others I write for.**

 **Feedback is always appreciated so if there are any errors, plotholes, etc. please leave me a note in a review and I will endeavour to fix it :)**


End file.
